Phony shooting report prompts 4-hour standoff in Park Forest

Written By By Susan DeMar Lafferty
slafferty@southtownstar.com Posted: 04/05/2014, 10:16am

Park Forest police are investigating the false shooting report Friday evening that prompted a multiagency response that resulted in police surrounding an empty home for more than four hours.

It will take time to trace the call, and the residents of the home are not suspects, Park Forest Deputy Police Chief Christopher Mannino said Saturday.

The call was made to a nonemergency phone line to the Illinois State Police about 6:45 p.m. by a male who claimed that he shot his mother in a home in the 400 block of Shabbona Drive in Park Forest, Mannino said.

The officer who took the call heard a loud bang and was unable to make further contact with the caller, according to a news release issued by Park Forest police.

State police immediately notified Park Forest police, who with members of the South Suburban Emergency Response Team surrounded the home for about four hours and then determined that no one was in the home and the call was unfounded, according to the release.

Mannino said police do not know why the caller chose that address.

Units were on the scene until about 11 p.m. The residents were located and found unharmed, he said.

“This was a large waste of public resources,” Mannino said.

Police had not yet determined the cost of the phony call, but he said that will be a factor in bringing charges against the caller.

“It will take time to investigate. A call to the nonemergency line is not as easy to trace as a 911 call,” Mannino said.

A phony call happens from “time to time” in police work, he said, and police have to treat it as a bonafide call.